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Cartoonist Ronald Searle passed away aged 91 yesterday . But his talent stretched beyond funny drawings - he also sketched the horrific conditions while a prisoner of war in Japan during World War Two. Here Michael Greenwood, whose grandad was also in a POW camp in the Far East, pays an affectionate tribute...

Most will know Ronald Searle because of his St Trinian’s school creations but to me his most important pictures are darker and inspired when he found himself in awful circumstances.

Searle was, like my grandfather, one of thousands of British and allied troops captured by the Japanese during World War Two.

The captivity was vicious and they were put to work building the railway made famous in the film Bridge on the River Kwai. Only the lucky survived including Ronald and my grandad.

Secretly, and on pain of execution, Searle drew what he saw - men made slaves in disgusting conditions and left ravaged by disease and stravation.

As many of those who did get home were too traumatised to talk of what they’d experienced, his pictures are all the more important.

Then in 1969 when his wife, Monica, was diagnosed with breast cancer and given just weeks to live, she agreed to try last chance experimental chemotherapy.

Ronald raised her spirits at each painful treatment session by drawing her a cheery picture of a character called Mrs Mole. Monica survived - living for more than 40 years more.

The couple kept these most moving pictures private until releasing them last year for a cancer charities. Anyone touched by this horrific disease should buy this uplifting book - it’s called “Les Très Riches Heures de Mrs Mole”.

Searle made good money drawing for big brands who wanted his funny pictures of crazy cats and people in their adverts or magazines and his success allowed him to live in style at his home in the South of France.

In later life he lived on pink champagne - or as he called it his “engine oil”. Who can begrudge a man who survived the indignity and horror of being a prisoner of war yet brought us so many smiles.